COLOMBIA: Armistice for Protestants

Under two dictatorsLaureano Gómez and
Gustavo Rojas PinillaProtestant missionaries in the Colombian
backwoods were victims of a nine-year campaign of terror and violence
aimed at chasing them out of the country. They were jailed, beaten, run
out of town. Their schools and churches were padlocked, sometimes
burned and dynamited, and it was decreed unlawful for any Protestant
missionary to minister to any Colombian citizen. Last week, with Rojas
five months gone, there were signs that the anti-Protestant pressure
was easing off.

In 98% Catholic Colombia, hatred of Protestantsespecially the active,
evangelistic denominationshas long been cultivated. Ever since 1887,
when Roman...